Anthropic's Book Destruction for AI Training Sparks Renewed Backlash; Musk Vows to Preserve Rare Editions

According to 404 Media's recent investigation, Anthropic purchased millions of physical books, cut their spines, and scanned them for AI training before sending the original copies for recycling. The controversy has resurfaced after the company previously acknowledged its book acquisition program through internal documents, which indicated it preferred to keep the project undisclosed.

Concerns intensified over the potential destruction of rare and out-of-print editions, which cannot be reproduced once damaged. Elon Musk subsequently stated that SpaceX-AI will preserve rare books and adopt non-destructive scanning methods. Meanwhile, White House AI and crypto policy advisor David Sacks criticized Anthropic for double standards, noting the company claims the right to freely use global works for model training while calling competitors' paid access to Claude outputs for training a form of intellectual property theft.